LAFD training center gets a makeover

The art deco building that serves as the training headquarters for the Los Angeles Fire Department is a historical landmark and a grand structure.

But the New Deal-era building, located near downtown, is also tired-looking. The stairs need a paint job and the light fixtures need a shine.

To give the site a makeover, about 400 volunteers descended Saturday on the building officially known as the Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center. | PHOTOS

For more than five hours, volunteers painted steps, planted roses and sodded the hillside behind the building, among other chores.

L.A. Works, the nonprofit group that organizes volunteer activities throughout the city, led the event. Corporations such as Home Depot and Northrop Grumman contributed time and resources.

"Firefighters like things neat and tidy," said Porsha Pearson, director of operations at L.A. Works, explaining why the LAFD was chosen as a recipient of free goods and services.

"We're here to help their image."

Few firefighters work full time in the building, but thousands pass through to do their training.

The basement hosts warrens of unlit rooms so firefighters can learn to navigate fires in the dark. Outside are mock roofs for training.

Located on Stadium Way, the building is named after Firefighter Frank Hotchkin, who died after falling through the roof while fighting a blaze at the building in 1980.

Back then, it served as the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center. The LAFD moved into the center more than a decade ago, leasing the building from the military.

Today, the LAFD is seeking to purchase the building and do renovations once the sale is complete, said LAFD Capt. Cheyane Caldwell, who helped oversee Saturday's event.

Until then, activities like Saturday's help provide smaller fixes that the the cash-strapped department couldn't normally afford, Caldwell said.

He pointed to a splintering mock roof as an example of how the LAFD is forced to use aging equipment.

"We're one of the best fire departments in the country," Caldwell said, "But we're training in a building that needs a lot of help."

Like all city agencies, the department's budget was slashed in recent years. The LAFD saw a nearly $100 million drop in funding over a three-year period starting in budget year 2008-2009.

Given the building's history, it's fitting that L.A. Works is volunteering at the site.

The Naval and Marines Corps Reserve Center was built between 1938-1941 by the Works Projects Administration, the federal agency that completed billions of dollars worth of public works projects during the Depression.

Joe Ahn, an employee with Northrup Grumman, spent the day sweating under the sun, helping clear brush.